luckyTHIRTEEN
by Xx.Toxic.Little.KisseS.xX
Summary: -Akuroku au- Thirteen is nothing and nobody, unlucky or no, he coats himself in the blood of the prey to keep himself alive. He's alone, but he's not lonely. And then... 'Axel', the nobody with a name -warnings inside-


Disclaimer: Axel owns Roxas owns Axel and both own me, but I own nothing D= Cruel, cruel.

Pairing: Eight x Thirteen (akuroku)

Warnings: (brace yourself) **Violence**, **blood**, **light gore** (it isn't _to _heavily mentioned), **torture,** **amnesia **(though of pasts, not each other), **drug use **(though it's not consented) with positive results, **male x male pairing **(yaoi/shonen ai), **male x male sex scenes **(lemons) one of which **borders on non-con **(though barely), and finally there's also rather **spastic!wording** in a few places.

Authors Notes: I'll try to make this quick, remember to_ breathe _through this fic. Uncertainties are mostly explained, insecurities mostly laid to rest, and spastic!wording is usually explained via actions and/or situations. Also without spoiling what the ending was, I almost went the other way with it, lol. But I'm a bit of a sap after all :) Feedback appreciated, all the more for the obsure-ness of this particular fic. Loads of Love, Jaffa xxx

**-x-(13)-x-**

**lucky****THIRTEEN**

**-x-(13)-x-**

**- I -**

**(o1) **_**un**__**LUCKY**__**Thirteen**_

He doesn't know where the name Thirteen came from.

He assumed it means the twelve before him weren't quite good enough to be lucky last.

He isn't sure, even, that it was his unlucky number - all he knows with absolute certainty is that he likes the awed and frightened way the others in the cell block whisper it when he walks passed with blood dripping from his skin and the taste of it coating his tongue.

_'Unlucky Thirteen.'_

He doesn't remember much about his past. All he knows are the dribs and drabs that make their way into his dreams.

It couldn't have been too much of a past, really, not with that shade of red all over everything.

Besides, with no one looking for him as he paced and slaughtered and slept in the cell-block, at least there was no one to miss him.

And Thirteen, lucky or not, seemed to be born for this kind of life.

**- II -**

**(o2) **_**not**__**LONELY**__**alone**_

'Unlucky' Thirteen was alone in his actions.

There were always watchers, always recorders and doctors and soldiers.

There were no other killers.

There were no other numbers.

One to Twelve never came around.

Thirteen assumed that meant they were dead, or had failed. Maybe both.

He didn't mind to much, he hadn't come close to failing yet, judging by the recorder's reactions and the whispers that still chased him down every hall.

Thirteen was alone, but he wasn't lonely.

Loneliness was missing something, and you had to know what you were without, to know what you were missing.

And besides, without memories of family, without friends to talk to, and without other numbers to compare experiences, there was nothing to distract Thirteen from the trials.

That was all the recorders needed to write pretty words about death and blood.

**- III -**

**(o3) **_**some**__**OTHER**__**killer**_

When Thirteen woke up one day, there was boy being pushed into his cell-block. His head wasn't the crew-cut of prey, his red spikes far to grown out to be a newbie and he walked with a cocky stride.

Thirteen didn't like him.

He didn't like the someone who wasn't a watcher, someone who wasn't prey, walking like he owned the place.

Thirteen didn't know what this someone was for a long while.

Long after the red-haired _somebody _walked up and grinned a shit eating grin, the sorts of which Roxas had never (that he could remember) ever seen before.

"Name's Axel, sweetheart," he purred like a panther, flicking a stray lock of blood-red hair from his shoulder where it fell against his hospital gown like it belonged there, "memorize it."

And Thirteen just growled a bunch of pretty-words he couldn't remember learning, and stalked back to his bunk.

Thirteen learnt what 'Axel' was about two weeks later.

A new batch of prey was delivered and Unlucky Thirteen was ushered into the arena.

Thirteen charged and growled and hissed and every single part of him was a weapon. His legs kicked, his arms whipped, his torso bucked and his hands snapped bones like twigs.

He was about three prey in when he heard another 'crunch', this one to far away to be his own work.

'Axel' hovered over a gurgling prey, a limp arm in one hand, what looked like a kidney in the other. He seemed to feel Thirteen's eyes on him, because he looked up with a deadly smirk and winked.

Thirteen hovered a moment, unsure of what Axel was, and what Axel was there for, but the red-head just turned to another prey running passed and, ensnared again by the rage that beat inside him, Thirteen went back to the blood and his own prey, ignoring the killer behind him.

**- IV -**

**(o4) **_**i'm**__**NOBODY**__**too**_

Thirteen didn't really know how to act around Axel.

The other killer was cocky and talkative and never seemed to leave when Thirteen tried to make him.

Thirteen didn't know if he could fight him, didn't know if he could beat him, he didn't even know why Axel was Axel, and not Fourteen or something.

If Axel was here to replace him, would Axel kill him too?

Thirteen could have asked, Axel may have answered, but neither one mentioned it.

Axel did something to make his words twist the air, make them heated like hot-pokers or warm like a hearth, but Axel never mentioned killing. Axel never mentioned memories.

"You need a name, sweetheart," Axel realised one day, as dead bodies cooled between them and recorders scrawled out notes on either side.

"I'm nobody but Thirteen," Thirteen growls, starting to stalk away.

For the first time Axel uses a little more skill on Thirteen then just twisting words aflame, pulling up before Thirteen with speed no prey could match, "I'm nobody too, baby, but Axel's much more _real_."

He whispers this, like it's a secret, like he's sharing something that has touched his soul.

Thirteen blushes before he can stop himself, something that seems so personal shouldn't be shared with a nobody like him, even if Axel was a nobody too.

"You need a name, darlin'," Axel tells him one more time, "if you can't think of one, I have plenty you can choose from." And the smirk heats up just like his words do.

**- V -**

**(o5) **_**somethingFROMnothing**_

Thirteen doesn't know why Axel keeps trying.

Not the fighting, the killing, the trials. He understands that part all to well. That's where his memories branch from, the beginning of the pain. He learnt the way to hurt, instead of feel it. He learnt the way to kill, instead of wish it.

He doesn't know why Axel keeps trying to _talk_ and _listen_.

Can't work out why Axel gives a damn about him, enough to want him named and talkative, at least.

Thirteen doesn't know (can't remember) where the warmth comes from when Axel talks to him like he's _somebody._ When Axel looks in his eyes and sees passed the arena and the blood-waterfalls.

If Axel was here to kill him, why would he bother? If Axel was here to replace him, there was nothing he could learn to help himself but what he saw already when they shared the arena.

He kept harping about naming Thirteen, warning that if the younger boy didn't choose soon, Axel was going to pick one himself and go with it.

After weeks of 'sweetheart', 'baby' and 'angel' Thirteen finally gave up.

What's a name anyway? What's talking when they couldn't feel enough passed the rage for attachments and friendship?

"Roxas," Thirteen growls one day as Axel's mid-rant about the merits and _reality_ of a name, "call me Roxas."

Axel grins like a kid on christmas (or, what Thirteen imagines he can remember of one) and claps the other killer's back, "Roxas," he tests out, "I like it. A pretty little spitfire name, for a pretty little spitfire killer."

'Roxas' doesn't really know how to take that, whether it's an insult, a compliment, or just Axel-talk, so he frowns a little and walks away.

**- VI -**

**(o6) **_**the**__**BURNING**__**touch**_

'Roxas' wondered, somewhere along the track, what the point of this was. An army operation, he had assumed once, from the drugs they pumped in his system back in the days of pain.

But they weren't soldiers, not like this, they were killers and destroyers and nobodies.

Axel had been here months now, and not a sign of any other change seemed to come about. No different tests, no different drugs, no different killers.

Just Axel with his heated words, his talkative tongue, and his name. And Roxas' name too.

"Roxy," Axel called one day, through the darkness of their shared bunk, "do you remember before all this? Before the drugs and the torture?"

Roxas felt like scolding the red-head for the use of a nickname, after all he was so insistant Roxas actually get a name it seemed silly to shorten it. But then, the nickname was slightly better then the pet names, so the younger silently let it alone.

"Rox?" Axel called again. It was amazing how loud a whisper could seem, when everything else was silent.

"No," Roxas replied. Only _maybe _a lie. After all, the memories in his dreams could be just dreams.

"Nothing?" Axel asked, "not family, not friends, not old phone numbers?"

Roxas frowned, "no," he muttered into the darkness.

Axel fell silent, his tapping foot made the bed creak though.

"Do you remember anything?" Roxas asked before he could stop himself.

He could almost imagine Axel's shit-eating grin. After all it was a rarity that Roxas' talked back, let alone asked questions.

"I remember the sun, and the sky, and the moon," he confessed, "and fire. I remember that special kind of fire."

Roxas hesitates, but again his mouth opens of it's on violation, "what kind of fire?"

"A touch that burns sweetheart," Axel purrs like a wildcat, "the sweetest kind."

Roxas doesn't know what he means, but he feels like maybe he's used up his quota of words. He rolls over to stare at the darkness and perhaps sleep. This time Axel lets him.

**- VII -**

**(o7) **_**come**__**CLOSER**__**sweetheart**_

Axel is a little different after the night of whispers in the dark. It makes Roxas wish he could have asked more questions, because the twisted words and heated whispers seemed to be hotter.

It made Roxas think of fire, and it was a fire that only burnt and didn't destroy, and that made him think of special fires and how a touch that could burn could also be sweet.

That made Roxas think of the way Axel sometimes touched him.

Little touches along his shoulders, his back, his hand. Usually just after they cleaned up after the arena, sometimes when they passed each other as they hunted prey.

Little touches that made Roxas' cheeks burn and Axel's eyes glow like emeralds.

Axel was watching him now, as he thought about it, and his eyes were the greenest Roxas had ever seen them.

His body was stretched out like a tiger, or a lion. All the feline that must be what his drugs were built for. He was seated in the hallway outside the arena, because there were only so many places to sit.

"Roxy sweetheart," Axel purred, wagging a finger in the boys direction, "if you think to hard you'll do something silly."

Roxas scowled, half from habit and half for Axels use of the nickname and went to leave.

"The sweetest of the sweetest," Axel's voice mumbled, to low for anyone but a nobody/killer like them to hear, "that's what you would be, Roxas."

Roxas frowns, his face turned away though his footsteps stopped.

Something inside him was begging him to ask the questions circling his mind. But he wasn't used to the 'talking' thing Axel seemed so fond of. Didn't know how to word things to hide his weakness' and strengthen his flaws.

So he huffed, as soft as Axel's mumble and replied; "Thirteen is nothing and nobody, but I could never be _sweet_ no matter what pretty names you call me."

Axel's laughter is soft as the breeze on the freshest preys skin, it tickles something inside Roxas that beats but doesn't feel.

"There's sweetness and _sweetness_ Roxas darlin'," Axel responds with a tiny sigh, "you're kind of sweetness is just right for me."

Roxas, confused, walks away.

**- VIII -**

**(o8) **_**clear**__**LIKE**__**crystal**_

Roxas wonders if maybe the trials and the drugs have finally gotten to Axel's brain like the recorders sometimes whisper might happen.

He wonders if maybe, just maybe, something might be wrong with the red-head.

After all, Roxas was sure you couldn't survive the arena without the assurance that you were a killer.

Axel seemed to forget everytime he left the trials, left behind the blood and the gore and the watchers. His eyes glowed in the shower, his smile grew in the hallways, his voice brightened the darkness of the bunk and he...

He made Roxas feel like a _somebody_ if only for a few minutes every day. And it was that, really, that worried Roxas most.

If something was wrong with Axel, and Axel started to make Roxas wrong just like him...

They both could be prey for the next little nobody.

Yet Roxas forgot this, every time Axel came up with a new riddle. A new heat, a new twist of words and thoughts.

They were padding from the arena to the showers, drenched with blood and gore. It matted their hair and skin and clothes, in just the way the watchers liked it to.

Axel's eyes were radiant like embers, greener then anything Roxas (could remember) had ever seen.

But Roxas was trying not to look, looking was making his heart (the one that beat and _couldn't _feel) skip and jerk and hurt.

It would be so much easier if Axel would look away first. So much easier if that eery green fire warmed something else for a few moments.

The shower spray was clear on the way down, pink on it's escape from the killers.

The blood always washed away.

But still... Axel was watching. Axel, with his dripping ruby hair and his sparkling emerald eyes. Axel with his heat and his twisted words.

And slowly, Axel got closer.

It was impossable for a nobody/killer like Roxas not to notice it. Imposable for someone so broken not to think the worst thing first. Imposable for a beating heart to stop - just stop for a few seconds as nobody-Roxas couldn't look away.

Axel was purring like a kitten now, but he was stalking like a cheetah - one Roxas knew he couldn't outrun.

"Sweetest fire," Axel commented as he came within arm reach, "pretty little spitfire Roxas."

Roxas couldn't react in time. A second after the words Axel reached out and claimed, pulling Unlucky Thirteen close, his hands dancing across blood-stained and wet skin.

The feel of a conscious human touch was strange and addictive, Roxas tried to pull away, instead arched closer.

"A-Axel?"

Axel leant in close to Roxas' ear, tonguing the lobe with a fire-hot appendage.

"Roxas, angel-baby," Axel countered with a smile that Roxas felt, instead of heard, "I wont ask this time."

With that Roxas felt fingers at the most sensitive part of his body. Tickling, teasing fingers.

A part of Roxas the boy forgot about until it needed something came to life under the redhead's hands. Something in Roxas' chest heaved with the heat of Axel's breath on his throat.

Axel could kill him now... he probably would.

All Roxas could think of was the sensations of wet fingers ghosting his erection, those same fingers playing with a hole that clenched in unfamiliar ways. All he could think of was the strength in Axel's arms, the power in Axel's hands as he held on for dear life.

And Axel was big as he entered the hole he'd been playing with.

He was alive in so many ways as he held Roxas' pinned to the shower floor and thrust-thrust-thrust.

He was forceful the way he took Roxas' cock in hand and tug-tug-tugged.

He was cocky in the way he pressed his lips to Roxas' neck when his sticky release coated all Roxas' insides.

**- IX -**

**(o9)**_**can't**__**KILL**__**everything**_

Roxas didn't talk to Axel for almost a full week after his actions in the shower. Axel shot him looks that were sometimes cocky (when Roxas limped) sometimes apolagetic (when Roxas winced) and usually heated with green-fire (when Roxas looked).

Roxas was pretty sure - almost certain - Axel was going to do it again.

He hadn't spoken either, as though letting Roxas have his space. It must have been hard for the redhead to last a week, really, he talked so much before.

"I can make it sweeter," Axel finally broke one day, into the darkness of the bunk, "and I could ask, next time."

Roxas pretended to sleep so he wouldn't have to acknowledge that his own sticky-release had coated the showers too.

"If we had mirrors in here, you'd understand," Axel promised from his seat outside the arena, "you couldn't resist either."

Roxas walked away so his blush was obvious to only himself. Words like that were almost cheating, the way they burnt.

"Roxas," Axel growled as they stalked from the arena, "stop with the silent treatment, I screwed up, okay?"

It wasn't an apology, but Roxas probably wouldn't have believed one. He glanced over his shoulder to the red-haired killer who was pouting and looking like if Roxas actually said 'no' that he'd actually listen.

"Sweeter?" Roxas asked, voice a whisper of nerves.

Immediately the other nobody brightened, eyes shining and smirk radiant. "Sweeter," he promised.

This time Axel cleaned him as soon as the water flowed in. This time, Axel nuzzled his throat and carded through his hair. This time Axel purred his name, licked his throat and touched him in new places.

This time Roxas was panting with want, rather then confusion.

This time Axel asked, and Roxas surrendered.

This time Roxas liked what Axel was making his heart beat rhythms of.

This time when Axel stretched him open, Roxas' knees inched apart to let him.

This time when Axel's hands held him steady, Roxas' pushed back into them.

This time when Axel thrust, Roxas met him.

This time when Axel came, Roxas called his name out as he did the same.

As they walked back, clean and dry, Axel threw his arm around the little blond's shoulders and sighed happily.

Roxas' heart (the one that beat and couldn't feel) felt _something_ and that's when Roxas realized that just maybe this place couldn't kill everything about them.

**- X -**

**(1o) **_**prey**__**AND**__**preditor**_

Roxas didn't really know why Axel felt such a need to put his cock up Roxas' ass.

He didn't really mind though, it assuredly felt good - like something he could become addicted to as well... but he worried, sometimes, that he would feel empty when Axel moved on.

He thought, with the drugs that made his rage alive inside him, that there wasn't room for any more feeling. Wasn't a place for attachments, for feeling.

But Axel screwed all that up with his heat and his riddles and now Roxas worried that it was to late to go back to being Unlucky Thirteen.

The prey came through just as often and irregularly as before. Roxas and Axel were called to the arena, ushered in and watched. Recorded.

For the first time (since he can remember) Roxas wondered what they wrote about him now. What they wrote about Axel. What they thought of the scenes from the shower, or more recently from the bunk.

He wondered if, the feelings and the sex, was enough to put a negative mark on their names.

Roxas wondered if Fourteen would appear. Or Fifteen, if Fourteen was Axel's place.

As Roxas and Axel slaughtered the newest batch of prey, blood splashing and splattering and coating their bodies, the recorders scrawled words, whispered things and watched.

Roxas looked at Axel as the last prey fell.

Roxas' baby blue eyes glittered like crystals and he put all he had into the thought - I don't want to die like this -

Axel shivered a little and dropped his gaze a moment. When he looked back up his emerald-fire was smoldering - Neither do I -

**- XI -**

**(11) **_**make**__**BELIEVE**__**promises**_

"I lied," Roxas confessed one night, in the darkness of the bunk.

"Did you now," Axel asks, mostly to the little blond's shoulder.

"I remember my brother, from before. I remember our mother bathed in red, and I remember the moon too."

"It was pretty, wasn't it?" Axel asked after a moment, "I think I really miss the moon..."

"Me too," Roxas confesses, quiet and shy and hiding in Axel's grip.

Axel's arms tightened around him slightly, and he whispered so softly that nothing else but one nobody killer pressed against the other could hear; "Want to run away with me, Spitfire?"

A moment passed, a heartbeat, "yes," whispered into swollen lips that taste like promises.

That night Roxas rose and clamped his thighs around Axel's hips.

That night Axel arched and whispered and kissed like he never had before.

That night Roxas made out, in dull peices nobody but a nobody could see in the darkness, the glittering 'VIII' branded into Axel's stomach.

That night Roxas rose and fell on Axel's lap, panting and exhilarated and feeling like freedom was calling to him.

That night, Thirteen finally fell in love.

And Eight had already fallen.

**- XII -**

**(12) **_**run**__**RABBIT**__**run**_

Thirteen and Eight were trained in ways to kill without weapons.

They were trained to feel no pain, show no mercy and to do whatever it takes to achieve a goal.

It was silly of whoever was in charge, really, to think that training would never be used against them.

Axel was quick and feline, graceful and sleek.

Roxas was stealthy and merciless, hidden and swift.

They made a good team.

The glitter of baby-blue crystal, emerald-green fire and the shine of crimson-red blood were all the watchers and recorders and the soldiers/mercenaries ever saw of the escape.

They broke from the arena, through paths and air-ducts and windows and locked doors.

They killed anyone they came across, as though it were all just another trial to them.

When they finally pushed through the grate leading to outside, the moon shone bright as though to welcome them.

And even if the world was still the pretty shade of Roxas' dreams - at least now he could feel it around him.

Axel leant sideways to share the weight of the moment, and Roxas' heart soared with new optimism.

**- XIII -**

**(13) **_**thirteen**__**X**__**eight**_

They ran.

Together, they ran towards the moon.

Wherever they would end up, they would never end up looking back.

**(****x****x****x****)**


End file.
